Indians are great consumers & poor producers of football: an economic lesson

In between all this happy spectating, we remember to moan now and then that our boys are farther away from the world football stage than the Communist Party of India is from getting a national electoral majority in the next general election.

On the other hand, in the next eight years to 2026, Indians’ purchasing power will have increased.

Another World Cup (we are not going to be politically correct and explain ‘World Cup’, everyone knows we are not talking about, say, cricket), and in India the familiar quadrennial ritual is playing out.

We are glued to our TVs, and this time, to our mobiles and tablets as well, watching football. Some of us are even cheering countries whose footballers and citizens haven’t got the faintest clue that there are a bunch of Indians who feel ecstatic every time, say, Neymar actually completes three consecutive touches on the ball.

In between all this happy spectating, we remember to moan now and then that our boys are farther away from the world football stage than the Communist Party of India is from getting a national electoral majority in the next general election.

India is among the top 10 countries in terms of paying spectators in the Russia World Cup. India is ranked 97 currently by Fifa. We are among the best when it comes to paying, and among the most ordinary when it comes to playing. There’s probably no other country in the world where consumption of good football and production of good football is so staggeringly out of sync.

Optimists will point to India breaking through the ‘100’ barrier in Fifa ranking, to the steady improvement in standards over the last few years, to India beating Kenya 3-0 in a recent international, and to the public response to India football captain’s tweet asking for spectator support for that match. All this and more will be marshalled to argue that the worm may be finally turning.

But very strong odds are that in the 2022 World Cup that’s being held —strangely and controversially — in Qatar, even with 48 countries allowed to qualify, India won’t make the cut. Some eternal believers have identified the 2026 World Cup as the event that may see India on the global football stage. Remember, though, many other Asian countries are improving all the time and the competition will be fierce.

On the other hand, in the next eight years to 2026, Indians’ purchasing power will have increased. And even more Indians will be able to access broadcasts of world-class football. Together, this may mean that in the 2026 World Cup, the paying versus playing differential for India will be even more stark.

Lost in Transliteration

Now’s the time to do a smart little turn with the ball — extend the argument in a different direction. We are at the risk of repeating this great consumers/ordinary producers binary in many activities, some even more significant than football. And this, in turn, has large implications for a large economy that wants to be a major global economic power.

Sajith Pai, a colleague in BCCL, which publishes this newspaper among many other media titles, recently produced an excellent analysis of India’s consuming classes (goo.gl/zgYJ4z). He points out that only 30 million or so of India’s billion-plus people are potential consumers of most startup ventures. And that given this small market size, India has received hugely disproportionate amounts of venture capital. Pai calls it an over-ventured market.

We can add another dimension to Pai’s analysis. Most of this over-venturing has been done by foreign capital. So, most of India’s major e-commerce companies are foreign-funded/foreign capital-owned. India-funded, Indian-owned thriving startups are ararity.

Therefore, in the startup market, India’s consumption story is also much better than the production story. Pai goes to say that startups for Indians who live and work outside the top 30 million consuming class will have to have a genuine Indian flavour — use of vernacular and simple user interfaces. Equally crucial is that these startups are funded and owned locally.

No large economy benefits in the medium term, and certainly not in the long term, if it remains only a consumer of new ideas, technologies and products. India’s good consumption versus poor production story is played out in fields as varied as weapons for armed forces and education for college-goers.

We are the biggest buyer of defence products and a terrible producer of even simple weapons like guns for the infantry. We send armies of bright students to good universities all around the rich world and produce very average quality higher education in this country. We are one of the biggest markets for personal technology devices, but despite import duties on components, struggle to build factories producing these devices.

Football Without Mothball

Like in football, improvements in production standards have happened in some areas, for example, higher education, thanks to new private universities. But, like in football, we are a long way away from achieving global standards and some other countries are improving standards much faster than India.

This is a question India’s policymakers will have to seriously confront. A country with a billion-plus people and, therefore, a very large workforce will remain a middling economy at best if it doesn’t get good at production in some major economic activities.

And unlike in football, in economy you can’t find solace by cheering another country.